Flight Delay

It's pretty obvious that I travel quite a bit.  One of my favourite travel tools is TripIt.  It scans my e-mail to create complete travel itineraries that I can access on my iPhone or easily share with others.  It even keeps up with all of my various travel loyalty points.  It's free but I use the Pro version.  This paid version monitors my flights, reminds me when to check in, and keeps me up to date with any delays.

This morning I was supposed to be on a 7 AM flight to Brussels.  I purchased a ticket on Brussels Airlines which was a code share flight on Austrian Airlines.  Well last night at 10:30 TripIt notified me that the flight had been cancelled.  And of course no customer service assistance at either Austrian or Brussels airlines were available.  My only option was to take my 2:45 AM bus to the Vienna Airport to see when I would be rescheduled.

My Saturday night Tweet

I arrived at the airport at 5 AM but had to wait 40 minutes for the customer service counter to open (late) for business.

I have TripIt so I knew that the flight had plenty of available seating.  This tells me that the airline cancelled the flight because it wasn't full.  However all I was told is that the flight was cancelled due to ¨technical reasons.¨  Whatever.  They put me on a Brussels Airlines flight 2.5 hours later and gave me a voucher for €4.  My airpot latte was €5.

At 11:30 Austrian did Tweet me back.  I got a "sorry."  Very disappointing as it's not the usual good service that I've received from Austrian Airlines in the past.

My Brussels Airlines flight at least got me to Belgium.